Naing Tinnyuntpu is no stranger to systematic and efficient approach. He came from manufacturing environment with Bachelor's and Master's in Industrial Engineering (USA).

His notable contributions to the semiconductor industry were the techniques recognized by Sematech as ‘Administrative Quality Best Practices’ during his process engineering days with now defunct IC chip making division of Hewlett-Packard in Singapore.

Born and raised in Yangon, he has lived in six countries and knowledgeable in unrelated areas including self-taught programming languages.
His free online Burmese lessons serve as an effective communication bridge among tourists and growing numbers of foreign business managers with the Myanmar people.

Restaurant Menu with Burmese Script 🍜

If you wine & dine in expensive hotel restaurants in Myanmar, you shouldn't have any problem ordering the food because
they will have English speaking waiters as well as menu in English. However, if you're one of those tourists who venture on
their own eating out in smaller eating houses and establishments, you may need some help in communicating with the waiters.

Of course, the best thing is to learn to say the menu items in Burmese. The easy way out is just to point out the
Burmese words to the waiter. Here's exactly what you need. Download
PDF file with Burmese Script and English Romanization using 1,2,3 Tone System

As a foreigner in Myanmar, you will find it very useful to be able to order food and beverages in Burmese.
You will have to pick up some vocabulary used in ordering food. Secondly, you need to understand
some likely answers from the waiter. That's exactly what we are going to learn in this lesson.

The phrase xxxx ရမလား |
"xxxxyah1ma1la3"
is used to ask if something is available.

Myanmar Grammar Notes: ရ | yah1 is a verb in Burmese grammar,
but it is roughly equivalent to the adjective "available" in English.
ရမလား | yah1ma1la3" in English is "Is it available?" The actual meaning in Burmese is :
"to get" + "can be done" + ? Another example: လုပ်လို့ရမလား |
loat-lo1yah1ma1la3" is a question of whether or not something can be done.
("do as this" + "can be done" + ?)

Why is it taking so long? ⏰ 😠

If you have ordered something for a while and it is taking a long time, you can ask:

You have to be careful with ခဏလေး | kha1-nah1lay3
by the Burmese waiter asking you to wait a while. He will never tell you ကြာဦးမယ် |
kja2ome3meare2,
meaning it will take a long time, even if you ask him:

ကြာဦးမလား |
kja2ome3ma1la3
-- Is it going to take long?

It all depends on how busy they are, and which eatery you dine at.

Measure Words for food and drinks ☕

You need to remember two primary measure words, also known as numerical classifiers. For food items,
use ပွဲ | pweare3,
which can be soften to sound like bweare3.
It means an order of something to eat. For drinks, use ခွက် |
"khwet"
meaning a glass or a cup.

Examples:

ခေါက်ဆွဲကြော်တစ်ပွဲ |
khout-hsweare3-kjau2ta1-bweare3
-- a plate or an order of fried noodles

Beer, alcohol, and liquors are available in a large number of eating houses and almost all up-scale restaurants that
are licensed to sell alcoholic drinks. You can order local Myanmar draft beer in a glass or a jar cheaply.
It is easy to remember the measure word for a jar. The same English word "jar" is used, and pronounced
as ja3. ဘီယာ တစ်ဂျား |
be2-ya2ta1-ja3
means one jar of beer, and it is about 5 glasses.

In some eating places, you will notice imported cold drinks in tin cans together with local soft drinks in glass bottles
and purified drinking water in plastic bottles. They are usually kept inside a refrigerator with a glass door near
the cashier's counter. You can have soft drinks like Coke, Pepsi, and Sunkist imported from Thailand. In 2013, Coca Cola
manufacturing plant in Hmobi, a town north of Yangon, has started its operations.
Coca Cola made a $200 million investment
with a projected job creation of 22,000 over five years span. As of 2014, 1.25L bottle of
Coke is sold for 700 kyat (approx. US 70 cent). Made in Myanmar Pepsi is also
available in Myanmar now. (See Pepsi Cola Myanmar facebook page)

Tiger beer brand from Singapore is also available, but if you read the printing carefully, you will see that it is brewed
and canned in Myanmar. Myanmar Beer also comes in tin cans.

Measure word for plastic bottles and tin can in Burmese
is ဘူး | bu3,
while ပုလင်း | pa1-lin3
is used for glass bottles.

While in Myanmar, try Myanmar made Aythaya Wine and Grand Royal Whisky.
Aythaya Wine produced by a team of German experts is the first Western style wine in Myanmar made with grapes grown in the village of
အေးသာယာ | ay3-tha2-ya2
located between Inle Lake and Taunggyi at the altitude of 1,300 meter above sea level.

Grand Royal Whisky is the product of over 17 years of experience by Scottish Master Blender William Arthur.

Those are the affordable gift ideas. As for myself, I am always content with soft drinks or plain water for dinner.

As of April 2012, a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label in Ocean supermarket is sold for around 20,000 kyat (around USD 25)
(Note: there was no sales tax added in Myanmar at that time but tax is now included in the selling price with much higher
sticker prices compared to a few years ago.)

Take Out Food 🚗

English word "parcel" is used in restaurant and eating houses in Myanmar for take out food
packed in styrofoam boxes. It may not be correct English, just like "packet", which is a direct translation of "pau" in Mandarin Chinese
is used in Singapore for the take out order.

ပါဆယ်ထုပ်ပေးပါ |
pa2-hseare2htoat pay3ba2 -- Can you put it in the bag?
(parcel + to pack + to give + suggestion)

Halal food for Muslims ☪

You will find a number of packaged and processed food with "Halal" printing both in English and Arabic. That
means they are approved by Islamic Religious Affairs Council in Myanmar. You normally don't expect a Chinese
person to be a muslim, but some Chinese in Myanmar are Muslims, and you can ask the local people where you can
get ပန်းသေးခေါက်ဆွဲ | pan3-thay3 khout-hsweare3,
a type of fried noodle similar to Mee Gorang in Malaysia and Singapore. Their spicy cooking style probably comes
from the south-western part of China. You can also get Halal biryani rice with chicken and mutton.
Those shops are usually owned by Indian Muslims, and some are wealthy enough to expand into chain-restaurants.

Eating Utensils 🍴

Normally, you have a choice of either a spoon and a fork or a pair of chop sticks. Go to an American KFC style fast
food restaurant, and you will be surprised to be served with a knife and a fork. This will be a totally new experience if you have
considered fried chickens to be "finger licking good!" In early July 2015, the real American KFC opened
it's first branch in Yangon near the busy intersection of Bogyoke Aung San Road and Sule Pagoda Road.

As for eating rice, just like other south east asian countries, a spoon using your right hand is supposed to scoop up the rice
while use your fork in the left hand to push the rice into the spoon in front. This makes more sense and certainly more
efficient than using a fork-- American style, or chinese chop sticks.

ဓား ရမလား |
da3yah1ma1la3
-- Can I have a knife? (knife + available + ?)

Burmese Food 🍲

For breakfast, Burmese people have ပဲပြုတ် | peare3-byoat,
a type of pea steamed and fried with rice, or eaten with နံပြား |
nun2-bya3,
round baked staple food made from dough of flour. Ethnic Shan or Kachin people eat
ခေါပုတ် | khau3-boat,
which is a type of black sticky rice grounded and baked or fried. Ungrounded Burmese version of glutinous rice is
called ကောက်ညှင်းပေါင်း | kout-hnyin3-poun3,
which is served with the mixture of grounded sesame seeds and salt sprinkled over it.

Another breakfast or lunch item favorite with the Burmese people is မုန့်ဟင်းခါး |
mone1-hin3-kha3.
If you have ever tried Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup or
Malay Laksa, it is the same idea, except for that the soup base is made from a type of cat fish, and the
rice noodle has a distinct fermented aroma.

The soup base of mone1-hin3-kha3 contains baked rice and pea flour,
banana stem, hard-boiled duck eggs, onions, lemon grass and fish sauce. The fish is separately fried with
minced garlic, onion, ginger, and turmeric powder until golden brown for the appetizing aroma, and added to
the soup base. It is eaten with crispy fried onions or fried melon, and garnished with fresh
cilantro (parsley), lime or lemon, and sprinkle a little chili powder before serving.
It is my favorite; the ingredients of mone1-hin3-kha3 seem to raise the
overall endocrine system of the human body and one bowl is never enough. But I have to warn you, if you
are a Westerner not accustomed to the taste of fish gravy, you might not find it pleasant.

Then, you should try အုန်းနို့ခေါက်ဆွဲ | ome3-no1 khout-hsweare3,
which is another soup-based noodle, but made with coconut milk, garlic, ginger, onions, hard-boiled eggs, pea powder, chili powder and chicken.
It is closer to Malay Laksa.

Another of my favorite is ခေါက်ဆွဲသုပ် | khout-hsweare3-thoat,
a kind of salad with the mixture of noodle, rice in chili oil, cabbage, bean sprout, green papaya, toufu, shredded dried shrimp flakes,
mashed potatoes, fish sauce, tamarind sauce with garlic, and garnished with fried crispy garlic in oil. There are a number of decent
restaurants specializing in Burmese food. Contact Asia Pearl Travels for details.

Food Poisoning & diarrhoea 🚑 😨

Be forewarned about eating in unclean roadside stalls. For some reasons, local people seem to have developed immunity
to unhygienic food preparations in some roadside stalls. Is the immunity in the Burmese gene? No, even returning Burmese
living abroad have lost this immunity and develop stomach upset problems. For your own convenience, bring medication for
diarrhoea if you want to be adventurous. On the other hand, outbreak of e coli, cholera or hepatitis will affect local and
foreigners alike. Learn how to say, "I have a stomach ache" in lesson 21.

Menu Items 📜 🍛

I think I have covered enough for you to be able to exchange a fairly good conversation with the waiter, and at the
same time introduce you to the background of food in Myanmar. You will just have to build up some more vocabulary on
the menu items. The main staple of Burmese is
ထမင်း | hta1-min3 - rice,
which is eaten with dishes called ဟင်း |
hin3.

ဘာဟင်းရမလဲ |
ba2hin3yah1ma1leare3
-- What do you have? or What dishes are available?
(what + dish + available + choice word + ?)

To answer that question, I have listed the vocabulary of food menu items on the left side. Visit Myanmar with Asia Pearl Travels,
and enjoy your meal!